Ep: 11 We have a Dorsal Fin! Installing a carbon fiber vertical stabilizer on my race car Stohr WF-1
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2025
- In this video I work with my friend TJ who thankfully had some amazing experience in carbon fiber work. He worked for Chip Ganassi Racings Indycar program and knows a lot about carbon fiber repair. We worked together to make and jig a vertical fin into my Stohr WF-1 rear bodywork and it ended up looking beautiful. we still have some carbon work to do but this was on of the main stressors about getting my car ready for the track. Really think this will help me pull precious lap time out of my race car next season.
I believe there are actually 3 reasons to install a dorsal fin... the 3rd being that it looks super freaking awesome! Great work!!! I need one of these on my car now. haha
It definitely looks amazing! Go after it man!
Great work!
Helps having a professional around. But thank you. It turned out better than I could’ve ever of hoped for.
That's awesome! I'm planning on putting a shark fin on my time attack supra good to know how i can make the sharkfin mold on straight when i build it.
There is no easy way to do it. But it can be done. Just take your time and do everything as slow as you can. And check check triple check its orientation and direction!
it worked for the D type jag mate....
Hoping it works here too.... Fingers crossed.
@@commodorepdog32 hope so.....now all you need is a quad cam V12......
Honestly I would settle for a turbo!
What class do you race that in? Are Doral fins legal as an "add on" per the GCR? Looks very professional, good job.
Going to run either P1 / P. Body is wide open. I get to do as I please.
Is 1/8" carbon going to be stiff enough to handle a large yaw at speed? I think I would have made a fin with a core.
It's cool having a guy with pro level composites experience but I would want to see the difference between real professional manufacturing and hobyist methods, then go through all the tricks to make hobyist level methods as good and easy as possible.
I want to make a carbon tub but instead of a pro style pre-preg layup in a female mold and cooked in a giant autoclave, I will make a sacrificial male mold, wet lay up the interior on that, then add my core material and exterior over that. My hard points will be located by a steel jig but the actual exterior surface won't have any critical dimensions so I won't need any mold on the exterior, just peel ply and vacuum bag.
My body work will probably also be done over sacrificial male bucks with 2-4 layers of carbon and some strategic reinforcement. I will use micro balloon filler to smoth it out, then paint it, so not super light but not too heavy. No "exposed carbon" but who cares?
My goal is going to be a Lowcost based two seat coupe around 1,500 lbs wet with decent enough aero to top out near 200 mph with a 2 liter turbocharged I4 running something like E30.
I'm not sure when I'll have the shop space to start but hopefully within 2-3 years.
We had a few reasons we went with the single sheet and not a core:
Easier to install, it turned out to be marginally lighter, we felt some deflection is actually a good idea rather than a rigid fin, and most importantly we didn’t have to do any finishing work if we decided to resize it later on. When we were molding it on we only cared if it was vertical and strait front to rear. The height and length we could adjust later.
If we were doing this 100% we would have done CFD and wind tunnel testing prior to designing the fin then we would have made a whole new engine cover for the new fin.
For us just adding a fin to an existing piece of bodywork I would say this ended up being a pro job.
Before you start your journey into car building I would recommend reading rule books for racing clubs in your area. SCCA GCR is my golden reference of best practices.
Good luck with your car build. They’re daunting no matter the project?
@commodorepdog32 I'm not worried about rule books. If I race, it will be Time Attack or Autocross and it will probably be forced in to a class that is pretty inappropriate. So it will be a road car with occasional open track events.
Also, as much as I like safety, I don't want a full cage so I would flunk tech in most race classes.
Understood,
Still a good practice to go after a rulebook as you never know, maybe you will want to race wheel to wheel someday after you have tried and conquered time attack. Always keep options open if you can when building a car to make it fit rules as many places as it can.